Its shares dropped 6p to 283½p. “We have huge regrets wasting that amount of money,” said chief executive Nick Buckles. “It was an excellent opportunity but we misjudged shareholder support.”

G4S said the cost of making the “regretful” bid, which collapsed late last year after getting the thumbs down from investors, had left pretax profits down 17 per cent to £279million

Buckles added he and ten top executives would not be taking a bonus this year.

G4S said it would benefit from its £200million contract to recruit and train 10,000 security guards for this summer’s London Olympics and Paralympics.

“We’ve had 50,000 applicants for the roles since we started recruiting in March,” Buckles said.

It will spend £200million on small to medium-sized acquisitions mainly in the security, catering and cleaning markets in fast-growing nations such as Brazil, India and China. Buckles hopes to grow its emerging market business to 50 per cent of total revenues in 2019 from 30 per cent today.

A new contract for Lincolnshire Police could be replicated in 10 other forces. Buckles said. “We’re hoping to provide more practical areas of policing such as protecting crime sites.” It plans to sell £100million worth of underperforming businesses this year.